Does creativity have a gender? Obstacles to excellence in women

Abstract

It is a social challenge for the culture of the beginning of the millennium to get as soon as possible the presence, under conditions of equality, of women in activities of creative production. However, until now there have been few works that have addressed the issue of the reduced presence of women in activities related to the so-called “big-creativity”. The article analyzes the social constraints that make it diffi cult for women to reach the level of excellence in the development of their creative careers. From the construct “locus of creativity” of Csikszentmihalyi, it is argued about the reasons for the diffi culty of women to be in that “locus” due to the diffi culty of accessing domains or disciplines and the lack of recognition of their contributions by the fi elds, that is, those people responsible for admitting the new contributions in the domain, since women are usually absent from them. The forms taken by discrimination such as the “glass roof“ or the “scissors effect“ are also analyzed. Finally, it is argued about the difficulties of achieving excellence due also to the incorporation that women themselves make of the prejudices that limit them from childhood, where the differential socialization between boys and girls begins.